April Fool by William Deverell Read Free Book Online Page A

to Stoney’s two-ton flatbed. Arthur makes out, under a torn canvas, saws, shovels, grapples, pulleys, wheelbarrows, a generator.
    â€œLet me understand this, Stoney. You are describing some kind of tree house?”
    â€œNot some kid’s tree house, a fort, a real fort. We’re talking, oh, maybe eighty feet up.”
    â€œEighty?” That was the hammering Arthur heard.
    â€œIt’s a palace, man. It’s even got a chemical shitter.” He jostles Dog awake, and they get out.
    â€œI suggest you fellows hide those tools for now, deep in the bush.”
    He presses the accelerator too hard, and the Fargo bucks and spits gravel. He takes the old bypass, up by the deserted vineyard, a project surrendered to birds and broom. He senses that his worst fears are about to be confirmed.
    As he approaches Centre Road, Margaret’s full-sized diesel Toyota passes the other way, Paavo driving, no Margaret. Distracted, swerving, he almost clips the Hamiltons’ roadside stand and its piled cartons of eggs. A hysterical chicken flaps past his front wheel. Slow down, he tells himself, everything’s going to be all right. Progress is retarded, in any event, by an empty logging truck that leads him on a winding climb. As he passes the old granite quarry, a glimpse in the rear-view reveals a fat figure astride a midget car–it’s Nelson Forbish, editor of The Bleat (“Covering the Island, Covering Up for No One”), on his all-terrain vehicle.
    Centre Road climbs steeply to the Lower Gap Trail, where another logging truck sits, along with a king cab, a bulldozer, and an excavator. Down the hill is a straggling line of parked vehicles, curious locals approaching by foot. Arthur wedges his truck behind a fresh stump–an acre of trees is down, a field of amputated trunks. But the crew of Gulf Sustainable Logging are now standing by idly. As Arthur stares at the carnage, he feels a sickness, again comes that sense of helplessness.
    â€œHop on, Mr. Beauchamp,” Nelson says. He prefers to address Arthur formally, but after six years still mispronounces his name, anglicized beyond repair centuries ago as “Beechem.”
    Arthur risks a perch behind Nelson’s ample girth, grasping the straps of his camera bag. Nelson goes slowly up the Gap Trail, his horn making tinny beeps, encouraging pedestrians to give way. “Press vehicle,” he calls out, then grumbles,“Nobody tells me anything till the last minute. Any idea what’s going on up here, Mr. Beauchamp?”
    â€œI intend to find out.”
    â€œYou want to give me a good quote for later?”
    â€œNot now, Nelson.” So many of Arthur’s quotes to The Bleat have been so garbled that he has begun creating fictions. Last month, Nelson printed his canard that the Northwest Nude Bathers Society was planning an anti-logging protest here on April first.
    â€œHow’s the program?” Arthur asks.
    â€œI’m down to two hundred and eighty, and it’s killing me. I get hallucinations. I dreamed I was in chains and there was a pork roast sitting in front of me.”
    After a few minutes they come to the narrowest part of the Gap, where sound is muffled by the forest and only an occasional spear of sunshine penetrates the canopy. It’s made darker still by the sheer rock walls. Here, Douglas firs rooted centuries ago, and found the sun–many are massive, covered by thick slabs of ancient bark. Delicate moss fronds hang from lower limbs, and tiny birds cavort in them, kinglets.
    Slappy bounds up to Arthur, tail wagging, as he dismounts at a small clearing made soft by a carpet of needles, with cones and dead branches raked neatly to the side. Among those gathered here is Reverend Al Noggins, ringleader of the Save Gwendolyn Society. He’s in the far corner of the clearing, an alcove, talking with the attractive gamin Arthur saw hitchhiking, the five-foot-two hippie.
    The star of